Klaus and Ali and all,,
Klaus wrote,
'As far a design is concerned, there is such a thing as envisioning futures that are not derivable entirely from the past.'
I'd like to rephrase that to give the same outcome without the language that assumes an obsessively human-centric position on agency.
' As far a design is concerned, there is such a thing as creating a plan for the future that is not derivable entirely from the past.'
This, mechanical and mathematical approaches are able to do.
The structural reasoning subtleties expressed in the paper Ali identified (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6399109/) provide such a basis for reasoning for this position - when the roles between free will and mechanical/mathematical are reversed.
Ali: thank you very much for identifying the above paper. It is both useful and moves the debate and analyses along a long way. It also aligns with Damasio's contention of sense of self relating to interactions between multiple bodily physical and neurological systems.
David and Klaus: From experience there are several very different states of perception of self.
One of the simplest is the idea that 'I' can do something. In this state, agency is self evident.
Another is the state of watching the body doing the state of 'I am doing something', including watching thoughts , emotions and actions during which the watching has no agency.
A third is the ability to undertake activities without agency, without watching and without the sense of the 'I' doing anything - and things still getting done. Perception of this is by memory after the event.
The latter two of these activities, especially the last, give a very different picture on human agency.
More, the last better informs theories about how humans design.
In essence, in this state, agency does not occur - the 'being' of the physical body entity is generating design outputs, or not.
Of interest, is this also occurs without dependence on words and language...
The question then is whether it is useful at all to create design theory that depends on the concept of 'agency'.
Best wishes,
Terry
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-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Krippendorff, Klaus
Sent: Tuesday, 7 July 2020 4:39 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The uselessness of 'agency' in design theory
Hi David,
I couldn't agree with you more.
Cognitive science is what it is the science of cognition, decontextualized from the social world in which humans interact with one another, live, evolve, and change their world mostly to the better. Moreover having settled on mathematical/logical explanation of cognitive processes as the only valid ones, it celebrates the kind of determinism that is built into computer software. In fact computer analogies are feeding cognitive explanations -- no wonder that cognitive scientists find no agency inside the brain as modeled, no free will.
I am not saying that the idea of a free human agent is the correct one, we are in many ways creatures of habits, inherited values, and logical reasoning. But as far a design is concerned, there is such a thing as envisioning futures that are not derivable entirely from the past.
Best
Klaus
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Richard Herriott
Sent: Monday, July 06, 2020 11:47 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The uselessness of 'agency' in design theory
I am inclined to suggest to those following this that cognitive science suggests that free will is an illusion and there´s nothing inside us called a mind**. What we feel is a decision is a report to the conscious of some internal process happening in the sub-conscious. The "self" is only "informed" of this decision after the fact. Assuming this is not half-baked hogwash I picked up in a Sunday newspaper, we can say if sentient beings don´t have agency then stuff doesn´t either. We can speak as if it does with no problem. Metaphors are handy and welcome.
The news from cognitive science puts me in the awkward position of acting as if I believed in free will and all that that entails but knowing that the evidence points to it being non-existent.
This reminds me of vexed conversation I had about actor-network-theory many years ago. A colleague insisted a building in a street was an "actor", that it had some kind of agency. To me it was a pile of bricks with stock, some doors and windows and it had no control over its existence at all. At some point I´ll have to critically deal with ANT because my casual encounters with it suggest at least some people are getting all metaphysical about it.
** David Chalmers disagrees, famously.
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